During this step, the stresses should be ranked in terms of their severity and scope.
Severity is the level of damage to the conservation target that would result from
the stress during the planning timeframe. Scope is the geographic extent of the
damage to the target that the stress would be expected to cause at the site. Each
of these factors is ranked qualitatively as very high, high, medium, or low. The
two factors are combined to derive a single rank for each stress in relation to each
target.

It would not be practical to develop strategies for abating all stresses affecting
the focal targets on AAFB. A more reasonable approach is to review and prioritize
the sources, many of which are common to multiple stresses and targets. The
Site Conservation Planning software application developed by TNC performs this
analysis and produces a ranking of active threats (i.e., active sources of stress) for
focal targets (Table 6.3). This permits managers to determine how each active
threat affects focal conservation targets and to begin developing strategies for
abating primary threats to biodiversity on AAFB.